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It looked like a mismatch. Pete Scantland, only 25 years old, was facing off against a handful
of state of Ohio officials intent on essentially shutting down his nascent business, Orange Barrel
Media.

As he remembers the 2004 meeting, he was told his eye-popping outdoor advertising displays in
Downtown Columbus, including a replica of a Mini Cooper mounted on the wall of a brick building,
were violating various laws. They had to come down. If not, the state faced losing millions in
federal funding, and he would be slapped with hefty fines.

“I had a sickening feeling in my stomach,” he said, recalling the moment.

Scantland not only survived that scare eight years ago (more on that later), but has
thrived.

In fact, Scantland, now 33, announced plans in April to build a $6 million headquarters in
Franklinton along the Scioto River. In addition, Orange Barrel, with projected revenue of $20 m
illion in 2012, recently has expanded to seven major markets, including New York.

The Upper Arlington native routinely is cited as one of the city’s most-successful young
entrepreneurs and is known as the driving force behind Orange Barrel’s iconic wallscapes that
combine advertising with art — or, at least, as one observer has noted, the art of capturing
attention.

Two of the company’s most-memorable projects have been the embedded “soccer ball” in the side of
the High Street condo complex advertising the Columbus Crew, and paint appearing to spill down a
15-story building onto a parking lot and covering three cars, created for Nationwide’s “Life comes
at you fast” campaign. He also worked with the development company Casto to create the multitude of
signs at Broad and High streets.

Orange Barrel recently has spread into interactive digital advertising. For example, it designed
a Lexus ad on a big screen at Times Square that, via a text message, allows people to design a car
of their choice “right before your eyes,” Scantland said

“He’s a true big thinker,” said Jerry Dannemiller, marketing and communications director for the
Wexner Center for the Arts, which has worked with Orange Barrel on promotions. “He always has these
grand, cockamamie ideas that he tosses out.”

For example, one of Scantland’s concepts for Nationwide’s “Life” campaign was a wallscape that
looked as if a cigarette the Marlboro Man was smoking had set the building on fire.

“He challenges you constantly,” said Nick Cavalaris, Orange Barrel vice president and corporate
counsel. “With his curiosity and drive, he’s always thinking of interesting ways to accomplish
those goals.” And it’s not uncommon for him to express those thoughts at any time, including emails
sent at, say, 2 a.m. “He’s working 18 hours a day,” Cavalaris said.

Not everyone is a fan. Orange Barrel has run into resistance from some residents in Washington
over an extensive digital project in a district that includes the Verizon Center arena. And Scenic
America, a nonprofit in Washington opposed to outdoor advertising, calls digital displays in
particular “huge roadside distractions and aesthetic catastrophes.”

“The idea that people are drawn to an area because of advertising is a fallacy,” said
organization spokesman Max Ashburn.

That is, unless you’re someone like Pete Scantland. As a child, he had a thing for neon signs. “
My parents would drive me around to look at them,” he said. “I was a weird kid.” After graduating
from Upper Arlington High School, he attended Elon University in North Carolina, majoring in
photography, and then landed a job with a Chicago ad agency.

At about the same time, in 2002, the city of Columbus enacted a new Downtown graphics plan to
encourage a more lively visual landscape. Scantland saw an opportunity to blanket big, blank, walls
with unique, creative advertising. He returned home and joined with a boyhood friend, Joe Mahan,
and they persuaded Mahan’s father, the owner of a construction company, to invest in the idea.
Orange Barrel was born in 2003 in a loft above the Short North’s Mahan Gallery, run by Joe’s
sister.

Nothing came quickly as Scantland drove around Downtown looking for unsightly walls and
cold-called property owners and prospective advertisers. It took 13 months for the first wallscape
to make its debut.

He didn’t think small. His first clients were Anheuser-Busch, Nationwide and BMW. To the
carmaker, he sold the idea of bolting to a building a foam replica of a Mini Cooper nestled in a
giant slingshot. “Then came the panic moment: How am I going to do it?” he said. “How do we
actually get it up there?”

That proved to be the least of his troubles. Soon afterward came that meeting with the Ohio
Department of Transportation. He was told his large signs violated the Highway Beautification Act
of 1965, putting the state at risk of losing $100 million in federal funding. In addition, he faced
fines of $100 a day for each of the three murals in question, capped at a total of $15,000. “I
spent two weeks freaking out,” he said.

He said he studied the law and believed the state was wrong. A powerful alliance agreed with the
fledging entrepreneur, including the Downtown Commission (which approved the signs), Mayor Michael
B. Coleman and U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce, among others.

Perhaps his biggest advocate was the head of the Downtown Commission, zoning and real-estate
lawyer Harrison Smith, who died in 2009. “He wanted a sense of vibrancy and a sense of whimsy (for
Downtown) and something like the Mini Cooper makes you stop and smile,” said Cavalaris, who worked
for Smith’s law firm at the time.

The three-year legal battle set up a David and Goliath storyline that earned Orange Barrel
valuable publicity. Scantland not only won the public-relations battle but also the legal case in
Franklin County Common Pleas Court, as well as the appeal.

Since then, Orange Barrel has grown rapidly, now with 35 employees — 24 in Columbus — earning an
average salary of $95,000. In addition to Columbus, New York and Washington, its work is found in
Boston, Charlotte, N.C., Cleveland, Denver and San Diego. Scantland envisions continued growth in
other top 30 markets, plus the Short North and the University District in Columbus. The monthly fee
for a wallscape ranges from $4,000 to $20,000 in central Ohio. In the biggest markets, the cost is
five to 10 times higher. Scantland predicts revenue will double to $40 million in 2013.

By the end of that year, Orange Barrel could be moving from its Grove City office to its new
headquarters. The plan, if supported by the Franklinton community and approved by the city, would
convert a former concrete plant into office and production space along the Scioto River. Living the
brand, Scantland intends to defray construction costs by selling wallscapes on the building that
would be visible from I-670 and Rt. 315.

“It’s weird, but I think he loves outdoor advertising,” Mahan said. “He’s found the thing he
really, really loves and he’s good at it.”